The Science Fiction Book Club Reviews Revisited: 1984 (third quarter)

[james_davis_nicoll]

List courtesy of Andrew Wheeler.

Contents from Contento.



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snip dead links
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This will a briefer than usual set of comments because I missed almost all of these.


July THE WARS OF VIS (2-in-1 of THE STORM LORD and ANACKIRE) by Tanith Lee

I missed this.


STAR TREK III: THE SEARCH FOR SPOCK by Vonda N. McIntyre

And this.

(Although I always heard good things about her Trek novelizations)


THE HARPER HALL OF PERN (3-in-1 of DRAGONSONG, DRAGONSINGER and DRAGONDRUMS) by Anne McCaffrey (Alternate)

And I missed all of these.

'WARE HAWK by Andre Norton (Alternate)

And although I read this, no memory of it remains.

[Witchworld. Is this the one where they have to do the thing with that thing and the hand of the author can be seen firmly planted between the protagonists's shoulder-blades pushing them plotwards?]


August THE NONBORN KING & THE ADVERSARY by Julian May

I missed this.


THE 1984 ANNUAL WORLD'S BEST SF edited by Donald A. Wollheim

I can't find a contents list for this on contento. I could have
sworn '83 was the last Wollheim-Saha annual...

[• Introduction (The 1984 Annual World's Best SF) • essay by Donald A. Wollheim
10 • Blood Music • (1983) • novelette by Greg Bear
33 • Potential • (1983) • shortstory by Isaac Asimov
41 • Knight of Shallows • (1983) • novelette by Rand B. Lee
74 • Spending a Day at the Lottery Fair • (1983) • shortstory by Frederik Pohl
84 • In the Face of My Enemy • (1983) • novella by Joseph H. Delaney
132 • The Nanny • (1983) • novelette by Thomas Wylde
156 • The Leaves of October • (1983) • novelette by Don Sakers
178 • As Time Goes By • (1983) • shortstory by Tanith Lee
193 • The Harvest of Wolves • (1983) • shortstory by Mary Gentle
202 • Homefaring • (1983) • novella by Robert Silverberg

I think the only one I read was the Bear, which was better than the novel]


THE CONGLOMEROID COCKTAIL PARTY by Robert Silverberg (Alternate)

No idea what this is.

[It was a collection:


11 • Introduction (The Conglomeroid Cocktail Party) • essay by Robert Silverberg
15 • The Far Side of the Bell-Shaped Curve • (1982) • novelette by Robert Silverberg
35 • The Pope of the Chimps • (1982) • novelette by Robert Silverberg
55 • The Changeling • (1982) • shortstory by Robert Silverberg
76 • The Man Who Floated in Time • (1982) • shortstory by Robert Silverberg
87 • The Palace at Midnight • (1981) • shortstory by Robert Silverberg
103 • A Thousand Paces Along the Via Dolorosa • (1981) • novelette by Robert Silverberg
127 • At the Conglomeroid Cocktail Party • (1982) • shortstory by Robert Silverberg
136 • Our Lady of the Sauropods • (1980) • shortstory by Robert Silverberg
152 • Gianni • (1982) • shortstory by Robert Silverberg
171 • The Trouble with Sempoanga • (1982) • shortstory by Robert Silverberg
181 • How They Pass the Time in Pelpel • (1981) • shortstory by Robert Silverberg
196 • Waiting for the Earthquake • (1981) • novelette by Robert Silverberg
220 • Not Our Brother • (1982) • novelette by Robert Silverberg
240 • The Regulars • (1981) • shortstory by Robert Silverberg
250 • Jennifer's Lover • (1982) • shortstory by Robert Silverberg
267 • Needle in a Timestack • (1983) • shortstory by Robert Silverberg


ON A PALE HORSE by Piers Anthony (Alternate)

Part one of a series, in this book a young man gets saddled with the job of Death. I liked it at the time, although I don't know if I would now. The sequels went downhill more rapidly than was usual for an Anthony series.



September DEMON by John Varley

The third and final book of a trilogy that I thought started with some promise. Humans pay dearly for having discovered Gaia, the intelligent habitat orbiting Saturn and as does Gaia herself.

[Everything sucks and get off my lawn]


THE 1984 ANNUAL WORLD'S BEST SF edited by Donald A. Wollheim

Hmmm. Was this solicited twice?


THE ELRIC SAGA, PART TWO (3-in-1 of THE VANISHING TOWER, BANE OF THE BLACK SWORD and STORMBRINGER) (Alternate)


More tales of Elric. See previous review.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

The Nonborn King and The Adversary are the last two books of Julian May's Pliocene Exile tetralogy. They are better than the first two books and much, much better than the books that came after them.

May had real strengths: high concept (the whole Pliocene Exile notion is a *great* high concept), plots of hundreds, Wagnerian climaxes. There is a great deal of fannishness and Celtolatry in the first two books. Well, in these two, too, but starting about halfway through Book Two she starts killing characters off with GRR Martin levels of energy and enthusiasm, and somehow that makes it somewhat better.


Doug M.

[agharta75.livejournal.com]

I will compare the Pliocene series to LOTR in this sense:

Both had material from an earlier unpublished work that made its way into the plot and almost took it over. When the earlier work finally did get published, it proved to be not as good.

Also, leaving Tolkien aside, Marc is Magneto from X-Men.

Magneto

[(Anonymous)]

that's a nice catch! Magneto with an extra dose of Byronic antihero.

Yeah, the prequel tetralogy was very disappointing at best, and parts of it were simply dire.


Doug M.